Re: AFPU (was RE: Free form for a printer and o specs)

[Vernon Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Justin

Fuzzy indeed - I think the HS article is kind of marketing FUDdy (they 
are selling pretty-good Java-based reporting tools that can run on the 
i, after all) - AFP Utilities is no longer supported after 7.2, but AFP 
itself is not going away. Is it as convenient to use it? Maybe not, so 
far as creating resources is concerned. There is now, since maybe 5.4, a 
PRTF keyword, AFPRSC, that lets us use IFS image files to put images on 
SPLF output - it generally works really well, but support in Host Print 
Transform come out only in 7.2 - but only in HP-compatible 
manufacture/model setups. The TIFF Host Print Transform does NOT support 
the AFPRSC keyword at this time - problematic for vendor product that 
use the TIFF *WSCST to convert SPLFs to TIFF, then create PDFs - I think 
most of the products that convert to PDF are in this state.

CPYSPLF now gives very effective conversions to PDF - and there are PSF 
facilities, as I am told, and haven't yet worked with.

The IBM article mentions other products that can work with AFP - I don't 
think any of them are native to IBM i, and we certainly do not want to 
utilize yet another Windows server (YAWS) to convert images to AFP 
source with the driver or to run another application.

Regards
Vern

On 7/25/2019 12:09 PM, Justin Taylor wrote:
> That's kind of fuzzy.
> https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1022140
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Raul Jager [mailto:raul@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 11:36 AM
> To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Free form for a printer and o specs
>
> PRTF can print beautiful reports, but the manual DDS for printer files has no new features since 7.2, output specs for printer have no free version, Does that means they are being replaced?
>
> Printer files with overlays are great for existing application Are they a good option for new apps?
>
> Is this FUD?
> https://www.helpsystems.com/blog/3-step-guide-replacing-afp-utilities